Tag: women’s MMA

The writing’s been on the wall for a some time now — Bellator didn’t put on any women’s fights during their brief 2013 Summer Series, only featured three women’s bouts during all of Season 8, and hasn’t hosted a women’s tournament since 2010. Last night, Bjorn Rebney released a statement confirming that their last three contracted female fighters have been released, and that Bellator will no longer be promoting women’s MMA:

“Jessica Eye, Jessica Aguilar and Felice Herrig represent all that is good in women’s MMA. Both Eye and Aguilar are ranked No. 1 in the world in their respective divisions and carry themselves with class and distinction, elevating the women’s game. I’ve said many times that fighters need to fight, and fight often. Given our current focus, we are not in a position to provide these very deserving women regular and recurring fights on a large platform, and I felt it was best to let them go and secure options that did. I genuinely wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors and will be rooting for each of them wherever they fight.”

Since the arrival of Invicta FC last year, followed by the debut of female bantamweights in the UFC, the marketplace for women’s MMA has become much more competitive. Bellator’s early efforts to promote women’s fighting were admirable, but at some point they began to lose interest. Notably, Bellator virtually forgot about Zoila Frausto after she won the promotion’s inaugural strawweight tournament, and there’s been nothing resembling a long-term strategy for women in Bellator since then. Essentially, there are other promotions doing women’s MMA much better these days, and with bigger stars. (See: Rousey, Cyborg.) Seems like a good time to walk away.

So there’s this featherweight from Santa Catarina named Julio Cesar Neves, and he’s an absolute monster. In less than two years of professional competition, Neves has racked up a record of 26-0 (!), with 24 of those wins by stoppage. On Saturday, he picked up his 13th win of the year (!!), and we have a feeling this one will get him noticed by the big leagues.

The fight you see above went down at Watch Out Combat Show 28, where Neves faced Dener Dos Santos. Less than two minutes into the first round, Neves fires a capoeira-style cartwheel kick that immediately sends Dos Santos into falling-tree mode. Your move, Lelo.

And now, in the women’s division, we have a knockout that’s less flashy, more smashy…

There are points in MMA history that if one punch is ducked, one kick is thrown, one submission is secured, the entire fate of the sport changes.

Numerous fights hold the distinction of being important enough that history hung in the balance while the combatants tried to incapacitate one another, but one that doesn’t get much attention in the discussion of Griffin/Bonnar-level important fights is Gina Carano vs. Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos (or now Cristiane “Cyborg” Justino. Whatever, we’re just gonna call her Cyborg). Yeah, most people recognize its importance as the first BIG fight in WMMA history, but their appreciation for it doesn’t extend past that. And, historically, it shouldn’t. The fight was a big deal but it lead to nothing good. It sent the most recognized fighter in WMMA away from the sport forever. Ronda Rousey, Miesha Tate, and others had to pick up the mantle that Gina Carano ran away from.

But, for a moment, let us pretend that the result of Carano vs. Cyborg was reversed. That’s what the second installment of CagePotato’s Alternate History series is based on: The fallout of Gina Carano hypothetically defeating Cyborg in Strikeforce.

What Would’ve Happened if Gina Carano Defeated Cyborg in 2009?

Before we get into counterfactuals, let’s briefly discuss what happened historically.

EliteXC (gee it fields weird to type that name again) had a burgeoning women’s division, no doubt to say “Hey, we have something the UFC doesn’t” and to draw attention away from the fact that their male roster wasn’t as loaded as the UFC’s. Not an issue though, because the women were awesome. Two specific ones were more awesome than most: Carano and Cyborg.

Carano was the most marketable female fighter at the time because she’s fucking gorgeous — and not just “fighter” hot, but seriouslyattractive. She could fight pretty damn well, too. Pushing Carano was therefore a no-brainer.

Cyborg isn’t conventionally attractive but she’s gifted at inflicting violence. Legitimate talent combined with an affinity for smashing fighters in a crowd-pleasing way is easy to promote.

“Cyborg” represents the famed Brazilian Chute Boxe team, which has Muay Thai as its base, but according to the report, the fighter has never previously been to the kickboxing style’s motherland of Thailand. While many fighters travel to exotic locations in the weeks after fights for vacation, Justino is going to Thailand to fight two women back-to-back just because she can.

Say what you will about her questionable Tito Ortiz-driven decision of turning down a contract with the UFC, but this lady isn’t afraid to fight for her money, that’s for sure. We don’t know much about her two scheduled opponents but considering the fact that five rounds of shadow-boxing — much less actual fighting — gets us winded, we’re quite impressed with Cyborg’s latest goal.

Oh yeah, Kim Couture is also on the card, fighting Thai fighter Petchrocha Looksaikongdin. First off, we didn’t realize that “Sugar Free” (ugh) was still competing. Secondly, fighting someone with that many syllables in their name, in their own backyard, doesn’t seem like a great idea for Kim, who is no stranger to unfortunatebeat-downs.

After the jump: Cris Cyborg destroys some broad named Edna in a Muay Thai rules bout back in 2006.

“It’s agitating, it gets under my skin. I know that there’s stuff that I could have done, but in the end I wouldn’t take it back for nothin’ because I felt like I was fighting for my life…but that’s the price that you pay if you don’t finish it, and I didn’t finish it. And after this fight I realized like, you only got you and that’s it, and…if you go to decision, it’s gonna be luck. You’re rolling the dice with the judges, and I’m not gonna let that happen again.”

The latest “All Angles” video from Invicta manages to recap a night’s worth of emotional content into four minutes of behind-the-scenes gold, including the tense moments before the fight, highlights from the battle itself, Rose’s bummed-out post-fight monologue, and finally some incredible footage of Torres breaking down in tears while talking to her mom on the phone afterwards.

Oh, you thought Cris “Cyborg” Santos was a terrifying killing machine simply based on her destruction of every woman put before her over the years? Well if you haven’t witnessed her backstage ritual before one such destruction, you don’t yet know true fear.

Watching “Cyborg” punch, knee and slam opponents in the cage is scary enough but seeing her gleefully prance and atonally sing to psych herself up for it is downright eerie. It’s like watching Fedor play cards backstage before knocking someone out or watching Wanderlei Silva smile and bounce to techno music before disemboweling an opponent.

There are killers and then there are natural-born killers. Watch the behind-the-scenes video we’ve placed above to see a natural-born killer flip that switch on and off and, in between, brutalize the game Marloes Coenen at Invicta 6. Then plug in your Dutch Schaefer night light and pray to your God that you never cross this woman in a dark alleyway. Or at a Curves. Or at an Old Country Buffet when there is only one piece of fried chicken left.

For the second time in her career, Coenen showed that she can last longer than most women against Santos, but once again, she took a bad beating and a loss at the hands of the “Cyborg.” Namajunas faced the tough Tecia Torres and lost a hard-fought decision that got the main card off to an explosive start.

Both bouts were entertaining and give enough argument on their own that women’s MMA deserves our collective attention. Check out the main event above and Namajunas vs. Torres after the jump and see what we mean.

The accusation inspired BloodyElbow’s Brett Brookhouse to do some deep digging about Atchley’s behavior, and if you have the time, you should read his first two reports here and here. In short, Atchley is accused of being a despicable scumbag by a wide range of female MMA fighters who have had the great displeasure of encountering him. Here are the highlights…

- According to LaRosa, Atchley stole sponsorship money from Maurice Smith, and was once caught on tape at a casino stealing money out of the purse of a woman he was dating, who happened to be the mother of one of Ivan Salaverry’s students. These incidents led to a falling out between Atchley and Salaverry. Atchley responded by sending Salaverry some rather impolite textmessages, in which he promises to blackball all of the female fighters that train at Salaverry’s gym from competing for Invicta or Strikeforce.

- After LaRosa turned down Atchley’s offer to manage her, due to the fact that she was already managed by Monte Cox, Atchley physically accosted LaRosa twice during the weekend of Invicta 3:

I won’t go into more than has been written on this site on the subject of Fallon Fox, the first openly transgender MMA fighter, who was born a man and then underwent (and continues to undergo) hormone treatments and surgery to change her sex, but you definitely need to watch the video above.

AXS TV Fights recently interviewed Fox. During that conversation, Fox was asked if she felt she had an advantage over her opponents in Women’s MMA who were, you know, born women. Fallon went further than saying that she and her opponents were equally matched — she assured that she was, in fact, at a disadvantage.

If I know anything about the CagePotato audience, you probably stopped reading right there, so I will see you and your outrage in the comments section.

(Julie Kedzie steals the show at the EliteXC: Destiny weigh-ins, while some creepy chick named Gina lurks in the background. / Photo via George Ruiz)

What the hell, guys…it’s like the UFC is actually assembling a real women’s bantamweight division, with contenders and prospects and even gatekeepers. Color us impressed. The UFC’s latest female fight-booking is veteran Jackson’s MMA product Julie Kedzie vs. Dutch kickboxer Germaine “The Iron Lady” de Randamie, both of whom spent time in Strikeforce before that organization’s collapse. As first revealed by FOX Sports, the two fighters will meet at UFC on FOX 8, July 27th in Seattle.

A decorated practitioner of the “Fuck This” fighting style (seriously), Kedzie has unfortunately lost her last two contests against Miesha Tate and Alexis Davis, which dropped her career record to 16-11. Since then, she’s kept busy as a member of the Invicta FC broadcast team, and according to Wikipedia, Kedzie is also Greg Jackson’s personal assistant.*